How to set up an in-home studio to record an audiobook
Equipment
I highly encourage you to shop local whenever possible, but I’ve linked to all of the equipment through Amazon so you know exactly what products I used.
* Please Note: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases (I’d be a fool not to). All opinions and reviews are my own.
Sure-Max 4 Moving & Packing Blankets - Ultra Thick Pro
Koolertron Universal 50MM Microphone Shock Mount
Software
Setting Up Your Studio
Find the quietest place possible. I also suggest finding a location where you can keep your “studio” set up for an extended period of time to avoid it sounding different from one recording session to the next. I chose the back half of our closet because: it was spacious enough and out of the way, hanging clothes helped absorb sound, I could close the closet door and bedroom door to block out house noise.
Hang up your four moving blankets to create a comfortable “box” to work within. I didn’t enclose the top or the floor. The floor had carpet which helped.
Attach the shock mount and the pop filter to your microphone and make sure it’s hung at the same level as your mouth.
I chose not to use headphones while recording, but the included ones in the mic bundle came in super handy while listening to the recorded tracks while editing.
Recording Tips
I had read it’s best to record at about the same time everyday because your voice changes throughout the day. I did try to record at about the same time, but some days it varied and I didn’t notice a significant difference in my voice.
I’d suggest recording for about and hour or two each day. Since I don’t do this everyday I found my voice quickly tired and became scratchy.
Have a glass of water handy! It will help you extend your recording session if you sip water throughout.
Read a page out loud before you start recording to get your vocal cords moving and to get used to reading out loud again.
Read from a device vs a hard copy of your book. This microphone picks up the tiniest of noises (trust me, it even picked up my belly grumbling one day), it will definitely capture your page turns.
Turn off the air conditioning or heat if you have forced air, the microphone will pick that up as a low hiss.
Each chapter should be recorded as its own file since this is how you’ll be uploading it later. I would suggest trying to record full chapters in each sitting. If you vary between recording sessions at least the chapter itself will sound consistent.
Recording
Open Audacity and make sure that your microphone is selected versus the built-in microphone. I’d also recommend recording in Mono. I found that while recording in Stereo sometimes noises would be picked up on one channel that wasn’t on the other and it was just distracting while listening. I had my Recording Volume set to about 80%, but you’ll want to play around with this to make sure you aren’t recording too loudly or quietly. For reference, my mouth was about 8” from the microphone and I wouldn’t consider myself a quiet person. If you get too close to a mic and too loud you’ll find you’re “overloading” the signal, which might work for rock but not storytelling. Spend some time experimenting to find the right balance of distance to mic, speaking volume, and recording volume.
Plug in your mic before you start Audacity, as sometimes it won’t recognize it otherwise. Restart Audacity if you find you only have the built-in microphone as an option available.
Click record and don’t worry about starting right away. For example, I chose to read and record from my laptop so I had to change between Audacity and Pages (Mac document app). Needless to say, the microphone captured the “click” noise when I switched over. These noises can easily be removed later by editing audio with Audacity.
As noted above, record one chapter at a time and save it as separate project files.
As you are reading, if you make a mistake don’t stop. Instead reread the sentence over until you get it right, don’t record and edit in the same session. It’s really easy to just delete the mistakes when you’re editing later.
I also kept recording when I needed to take a breath and collect myself or when I needed to take a sip of water. It’s important to stay in the recording mindset, to maintain consistency.
Editing
This microphone is so sensitive that it sounded like I was inhaling deeply each breath I took between sentences. It sounded like I was about to pass out, it was that bad. I purchased the DeBreath plugin from Waves which can be used with Audacity and the first thing I did was run my recordings through it. This plugin is pretty amazing. You can change the settings based on your own breathing in order to have them completely eliminated. It wasn’t 100% foolproof, but it got rid of 90-95% of my breaths and was a huge time saver.
After running DeBreath listen to the chapter from the beginning. ACX requires a minimum of 30 seconds of “room noise” (see below) at the beginning and a minimum of 1 minute at the end. With that in mind, I cut any extraneous time from before I said “Chapter 1” by highlighting what I wanted to delete and clicking Edit > Delete.
Remember those “clicks” I mentioned earlier? Those are easy to remove by highlighting the area that should be “silent” and clicking Generate > Silence. I also did this when I found any areas where I took a breath that the DeBreath plugin didn’t capture or when I smacked my lips, swallowed or my belly grumbled (basically anything that shouldn’t have been there).
As you come across sections were you made a mistake simply select the problem area and Edit > Delete it.
Try to make sure your pauses between sentences are consistent and not too close together or too far apart. Specifically when I swallowed there would be a longer pause after removing all the noise, so I would delete out a little bit of the extra time left in there.
Room Noise
I recorded 3 min of silent “room noise” and used that as an additional track in each file. To do this I selected Tracks > Add New > Mono Track. I then copied my room noise track and repeatedly pasted it to match the length of the file. This ensures that after you’ve “silenced” your breaths or other noise there is still room noise audible. Unfortunately this doubles the room noise when you’re speaking, but I didn’t think it made an audible difference unless I had the volume turned way up. Next time I record an audio book I will likely try replacing my breaths or other extraneous noises with the “room noise” vs silencing it entirely.
Reviewing
Once you are done editing I would suggest listening through again while reading along with your book. You will undoubtedly find sections that need to be re-recorded due to mistakes. I fixed mistakes where I inadvertently changed the story, but if I added or changed an innocuous word here or there that didn’t have any significant impact I left them. Another bonus to doing this - I found more typos that slipped through during the book’s editing phase and I was able to clean those up and re-upload to my providers.
As you find mistakes make a note of the chapter & time so that you can go back in later to fix them.
Re-Recording
When you are ready to re-record, the best way I found was to use Tracks > Add New > Mono Track. This will add a track below your original recording. Go to the timestamp you noted during the Reviewing phase. Click Mute on the original track, otherwise as you are recording your re-take your original track will play. Click Record and you’ll see the re-take appear below the original. When you are done click stop. Then select your re-take from the new track and Edit > Copy it. Select your mistake in the original track and Edit > Paste. You can then delete your new track and unmute the original.
Post Processing
I had help with post processing my files. I know they added Reverb, Compression & made sure the Levels were about the same. They also exported the files in MP3 format to meet the ACX specifications. I’m sure these can all be done through Audacity as well.